


we are not the ruins of who we were

by girlsarewolves



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort/Angst, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Femslash February 2017, Final Girl Femslash, Happy Ending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Marriage, horror femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10017380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: "He didn't ruin us, you know," she whispers sometimes. Strokes Nancy's hair away from her face but leaves enough space between their bodies that she won't feel suffocated, trapped. "He didn't ruin you."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheYearOfTheWolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheYearOfTheWolf/gifts).



> For the prompt: "With a hoarse voice, under the blankets" (ways you said, "I love you").
> 
> I have very strong feels about these two girls finding comfort in each other and about Kris comforting Nancy.

* * *

She frames the preschool photograph, the one of all their smiling faces, innocent eyes and chubby cheeks; all baby fat and ignorance. They hang on the wall like a memorial, rows of ghosts that can only watch.  
  
Kris doesn't like to look at it.  
  
Nancy can stare at it for hours.  
  
It makes both of them cry, but one of them needs to feel, needs to remember there was a time before - before he touched them, before he hurt them, before he ruined them - and the other, she only wants to forget what she'll never get back.  
  
"He didn't ruin us, you know," she whispers sometimes. Strokes Nancy's hair away from her face but leaves enough space between their bodies that she won't feel suffocated, trapped. "He didn't ruin you."  
  
I know, she almost says, but the words always feel wrong on her tongue. She knows, but, sometimes she feels so wrong.  
  
"You aren't a canvas that he left a mess on, that can never change, never be good," Kris starts saying instead, says it every night; speaks in Nancy's language, because nothing makes more sense to Nancy than art. "We are more than him."  
  
Nancy clasps Kris' hands in hers, wishing she could sleep curled up in the warmth Kris offers, but tangled limbs are still foreign and unsettling to her. "I know," she whispers back, looks Kris in the eyes. "We're more than him," she repeats.  
  
They both need to hear it.  
  
They both need to say it.  
  
Nancy frames their graduation photograph, the empty spaces where ghosts don't show, the somber faces, the haunted eyes. They hang on the wall like a reminder, a list of those who survived.  
  
Kris doesn't like to look at it; Nancy feels the same.  
  
It makes the both of them cry, but sometimes, sometimes Kris looks at it and looks at Nancy, and she smiles. "We are more than him," she says, and Nancy nods.  
  
"We're more than him."

* * *

They frame their wedding photographs, all their favorites, their smiling faces, clasped hands and hopeful eyes; hard lines and happiness. They hang on the wall like holy wards, captured memories and visual proof that they survived, that they aren't ghosts trapped in skin.  
  
Kris looks at them constantly.  
  
Nancy looks at them when she needs them.  
  
Sometimes the photos make them cry; happy tears are still new to Nancy, but she finds she doesn't mind them. Kris welcomes them in all the ways she'll fight off the other kind.  
  
They sleep with hands clasped and space between; tangled limbs will never be something Nancy feels safe with, but she believes Kris when her wife says, "There's nothing wrong with your canvas." She can say, "I know," when Kris tells her, "He didn't ruin us. He didn't ruin you."  
  
"We are more than him," they both say some days, like a mantra; like a vow.  
  
They look at their photographs hanging on the wall, and they say, "We're more than him." They look at their photographs hanging on the wall, adding more and more, smiling faces, loving eyes and laugh lines; charcoal smudges and cake batter and happiness, found in their own ways.  
  
"We are more than him," they find they don't always need to say.


End file.
